


Paranoia

by Your_Favorite_Fetus



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, One Shot, Paranoia, Paranoid, Post-Weirdmageddon, Short, Someone Help Them, i wrote this all in like one sitting, is bill even in this fic?, mabel and dipper are both scared, mabel suffered too!!!, not pinecest, or is he Not? that's for you to decide, this is my first gravity falls story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 05:57:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20304589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Your_Favorite_Fetus/pseuds/Your_Favorite_Fetus
Summary: Dipper and Mabel both felt the same worries, dealing with them in different ways.One night, one of them brought up the topic neither of them wanted to discuss.





	Paranoia

It seemed like, no matter how hard he tried to distract himself, Dipper couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. As he woke up and ate his breakfast, talking and laughing with Mabel, Grunkle Stan, and Grunkle Ford, there was this lingering tension he felt inside of himself. Not knowing how to describe it, he didn't mention it, but he observed everybody at the table to see and attempt to decipher how they felt. Did any of them feel the nervous tension? It was hard to read their facial expressions, as they all looked content. That, paired with the thoughts racing through his mind, made it hard to focus on doing that.

Even at the pool, which tended to be a place for him to relax and let go of his tension, gave Dipper no solace from the thoughts intruding into his mind. He'd space out, staring out past the fence, his eyes darting back and forth. Searching for something. A sign. A warning. He found no obvious ones. The ones he did find were vague, likely unrelated to the concept he connected them to. Coincidental shapes that had always been there now made him uneasy, as if it symbolized something. _Someone_. He'd stay lost in thought until a splash from his twin sister brought his mind back into reality. He wanted to tell her, but he had no idea how she'd respond. Part of him didn't want to know how she'd respond, in case the answer she gave him was one that confirmed his worries.

What he wasn't aware of was, yes, Mabel definitely knew how he felt. And she felt the same way. She hadn't mentioned it to her brother, either, not sure if she wanted to know how he felt. She was able to tell something was off with him, from how easily he seemed to be absorbed into thought, to how he stared at things that had that certain three-sided shape for too long. Mabel, on the other hand, had a different way of coping with the tension that she also felt. Instead of focusing on it, she did what she could to distract herself from it. When she felt like an eye was peering at her during the lingering silence in a conversation, she'd quickly speak to fill the emptiness. The first topic that came to her mind would come spilling out in what was probably too chipper of a tone. She desperately clung to the idea that everything was fine, that nothing was wrong. Speaking filled her head so that she wouldn't have to think about those unwanted ideas that seemed to flock into her mind whenever it was empty. Mabel, along with being extra talkative, resented spending time alone. The time spent by herself only made her unwanted thoughts louder. She avoided being alone at all costs, leaving the room to enter another room with somebody in it, calling Grenda or Candy, going on a stroll through town... _Anything_.

This wasn't out of the normal for her, but she now had a reason to be reaching out to other people. To have somebody to distract her from the looming suspicions that something terrible was going to happen. She avoided talking about her worries at all costs. Maybe, if she avoided talking about them, they'd go away. However, after a week of paranoia, neither of their anxieties had ceased.

Mabel, despite trying to avoid the topic, was the first person to bring it up.

Both of them were in bed, supposed to be asleep. However, neither of them actually were sleeping, or close to it. Dipper lie on his side, facing the wall, silent. Mabel stared up at the ceiling, on her back, her thick brown hair tied into a tight braid to avoid tangles as she slept. Her head rolled to the side, her eyes landing on Dipper. _Was he asleep?_ She couldn't tell. Her eyes drifted from her twin brother to the window in between their beds, and she felt a feeling of uneasiness settle in her stomach.

The moonlight shone through the window, casting a cool light across the room. Usually, the moonlight was calming, but not that night. It felt like a spotlight, casting a triangular silhouette across the room. After a moment, she pushed herself up into a seated position, staring at Dipper's back. A few seconds of consideration later, she spoke, softly. "... Dipper?"

There was another moment of silence before there was a reply. "What?"

"... I can't sleep."

Another pause. He rolled onto his back, turning his head to the side to look at her. "Neither can I," he replied, his voice quiet as he sat up as well.

Mabel didn't know what to say at first. "Oh." She considered her words. Should she explain completely? Would she scare Dipper? She decided on something simple. "... I'm scared."

"... Me too."

The look on Mabel's face seemed to say it all to Dipper. After glancing at the big window, he looked back at her. "Have you... Felt _weird_? Since... Getting back here?"

She stared at him, brown eyes wide, and they both seemed to connect in that moment.

"I didn't want to say anything about it. I didn't want to... Think about it. I figured, maybe if I didn't, like, think about it, that it'd just _stop_, and..." She wrung her hands in her blanket, her leg bouncing nervously. "... I don't want it to happen again, Dipper."

Her words made Dipper's chest tighten up with worry. It hadn't just been him. Neither of them had mentioned anything, but both of them knew exactly what the other was talking about.

"I know, Mabel. I don't either."

"... What if he's _back_?"

Both of them felt wary as they stared into each others' fearful faces. Mabel had just said what they had both been thinking for days. Despite it being a warm summer night, the room felt as if it had dropped in temperature by ten degrees.

Perhaps that was because of the feeling that there might be an eye peering through the triangular window between them.


End file.
